SECRETARY'S REPORT. 153 



prices everywhere seemed small for hard, earnest labor, and I 

 could not help thinking how glad our own farmers would be to 

 give double and board their workmen at that. 



Now, it is true, that the price of living is not generally quite 

 so high in the countries I have named as with us, yet the differ- 

 ence is nowhere so great comparatively as in the prices paid 

 for labor. In fact, to live as well as our people of the same 

 class do, the cost would be very nearly the same. The price of 

 potatoes, for instance, in the neighborhood of Dublin, is seven 

 pence a stone of fourteen pounds. That is a cent a pound, or 

 sixty cents a bushel. Parsnips are four pounds, or about twenty 

 dollars a ton. The price of good butter throughout Ireland is 

 on an average a shilling a pound, so that a man has to work 

 hard twelve or fourteen hours to earn a pound of butter. This 

 is the price in town and country. The model farm at Glasnevin 

 got eighteen pence, or thirty-six cents a pound in January of 

 this year, 1863, and the lowest price at any time is a shilling 

 or thirteen pence, that is twenty-four and twenty-six cents. 



I made similar inquiries as to the prices of common articles 

 as a means of comparison everywhere I went, and I know about 

 how the case stands, for I made it a practice to record such 

 items on the spot. The price of flour is about as high on the 

 continent as with us, and I think the same quality of meats 

 about as high. 



This discrepancy between the prices of labor and the cost of 

 living gave me a good text to talk to everywhere I went. 

 When I told a hard-working, skilful gardener, who was toiling 

 away at thirty cents a day, that the same kind of labor would 

 command now from one to two dollars a day and all found, and 

 that thousands of men would be glad to hire them at those 

 prices they could scarcely believe me. This was a kind of 

 missionary work I felt everywhere bound to perform, and I 

 very rarely found a man who was not only willing, but anxious, 

 to try his fortune and liis hand in America. 



From Leipsic to Jena is about two hours, partly by rail and 

 partly by diligence. The route is altogether more picturesque 

 than any portion of that from Hamburg to Leipsic, the country 

 being finely undulating and highly cultivated. The roads arj 

 everywhere good and kept in the most perfect order on tlie 



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